A somewhat overdue open thread for personal stuff. (The open thread for everything else is over here.)
As is always the case, NO TROLLS, NO MRAS, etc., be nice.
Categories
We Hunted The MammothBucking the Backlash
We Hunted The Mammoth
Your pic reminds me of this article that’s going viral:
https://www.distractify.com/hug-it-out-bro-1259324711.html
Well, I’m finally seeing a psychologist for the depression stuff I’ve been having.
In better news, my girlfriend and I may finally set up a tank for a leopard gecko this summer. Her own gecko has just gotten past a bad relationship; the male she got started stealing her gecko’s food. So he got brought back and her gecko is doing well again, with a good-sized tail.
Well, the psychologist *is* good news, but you get what I mean. 😛
Congratulations, andiexist!
I had started therapy but then my health provided suddenly cancelled the services through my mental health center, so I’m sort of starting all over again 🙁
Luckily it seems the worst of the past few weeks has been wearing off, but I do need to get assistance before I start feeling all wrong again :/
On good news, my radio project is going on great, I’m having a great time and I’m beginning to interview women who have taken part in the fight for our rights in Latin America.
It’s a bit hard for me to investigate so many matters related to violence against women, I need to make sure I get enough rest and brain bleach and hugs. But I’m determined to make it all the way!
Also, I’ve been reading and posting here all day instead of working and exercising and trying to put my life in order.
I don’t regret it, I think the last huge debate about the comment policy is important and this place for me is important! So screw everything!
http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/uploads/angry-cat-fuck-this.gif
I kinda need some personal advice. I had sex with a woman in a not so private fashion (in a hot tub with other people in the back yard). It’s been the talk of my social circle for a few weeks now and the woman is getting all kinds of flack for it from exes and from acquaintances. I’ve been trying to emotionally support her and I can see how much the slut-shaming has been affecting her. Meanwhile I have, if anything been getting praise for what happened. It’s made me feel guilty about it all. I’ve been trying to quiet the rumour mill but the toothpaste has come out of the tube. I wonder if there is more that I can do. I feel badly about it now.
Truth. I should have been asleep hours ago. But chatterboxing about change is more interesting :).
I think the last time I commented in a personal thread I was upset about my job interview fails? I didn’t get back to anyone at the time, but just wanted to say thank you in case anyone’s reading for the replies of comfort and support (to Flying Mouse and weirwoodtreehugger among others). The interview that day was rigged anyway, bah.
Hope it goes well andiexist :), and loving your avatar.
Thank you for your lovely support, peoples. *hugs*
@Misha
I’m glad you like the new avatar. It’s about time I was a teeny dragon.
Hello y’all! I’m mostly a lurker, but I thought I would say hello. I was raised in an outrageously conservative religious sect, so it’s weirdly comforting (maybe?) to know a lot of the rhetoric I was taught is symptomatic of bad offshoots of society, and not the way it is.
In other news, I’m an American girl closing out her first year in Denmark as a grad student in cognitive semiotics. It’s great, but pretty trippy! I’m jealous of y’all’s pets; I’ve yet to find a reasonable place that allows pets here. (Luz: I’d love to listen to your radio project!)
That’s it, I suppose.
Hi everyone, I could really use a bit of advice. I’ve had a really rough couple of months, and my anxiety is on a bit of a hair trigger, so bear that in mind if I sound a bit overwrought.
Anyway, and trigger warning/tmi for medical/gynecological question:
I’m going to be going in for my yearly well woman exam. I’m generally pretty fine with all that goes into the exam, but there’s one part I straight up get freaked out thinking about. It’s never been done and never proven an issue with any of my exams, but this time I’m with a different doctor than my usual. Nothing wrong with that, except now I’m concerned about this issue again. I know I can refuse, but the internet has horror stories about birth control being held hostage over such refusals. As such, and the core of my question…..does anyone know of that happening in real life, rather than just questionable interwebs accounts?
And yes, I know, I’m contradicting myself by asking internet people, but I trust ya’ll pretty thoroughly. So there’s that.
Ps, if this is in any way inappropriate, please feel free to remove it David.
@andiexist that’s great~ I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist for several years now; it’s extremely helpful. I was really picky with my therapist though, but he’s good. The trickiest part is finding one you can get along with. I’ve been seeing him around 3 years, and my other doctor for 4 years.
In good news for me, I’m starting college very soon :D. I just took the ACT Compass test today, and I had good scores in reading and writing – I did REALLY shitty in math though, which is fine, because now I only have to take basic algebra, which I’m pretty sure I can handle lol.
Kitten hugs to all!
Oh, and welcome Smidgette. I believe there are others here who raised in ultra conservative environments so you’re in good company.
Weird to confess this, but I think this would be a good place to. (If it’s not, please feel free to remove it, Dave)
Ever since i started digging into the dark corner that MRA’s live in, and reading all their shit, about women being ‘lesser’ than men, and that women are children, and should treated as such, etcetc. I actually started thinking that. Not believing it was true, nononon, but like…it’s been in the back of my mind ever since, and sometimes, when everything is quiet, I just start thinking about it, and I don’t know. It’s just really frustrating. (Not sure if this makes any sort of sense? Sorry if it doesn’t, but it’s been bothering me quite a bit.)
So last time I was here, I was headed to Arizona to help a woman I knew from my overseas stint through a divorce/custody situation. At the time, she was terrified that she was going to lose her son and get deported. But in the intervening months, things have gone really well. She hasn’t been harassed and the courts have been taking her side thus far. On a personal level, she received a driver’s licence and has been taking ESL classes (which I don’t feel she needs, but she likes to keep busy). I’m continually amazed by how far she’s made it, and really with only minimal help from me.
The next hearing is in a month. She’s hoping to move out here after it’s done, but that obviously depends on a lot of factors that aren’t in my control.
@Ghostbird I get anxious about medical exams too.
Remember that you are the customer, it is your body, and you are The Boss, and you always have a right to ask questions, to say yes or no, to bring a friend, to go to a different doctor (I know financial issues can constrict these choices, I was uninsured for a long time, not anymore be thanks Obama! 😉
I always tell my Drs about my anxiety. I am actually going into the medical field so remember, some doctors may have had anxiety once too!
Try breathing exercises and such beforehand to relax you as well.
I have had bad experiences with some Drs but others have been great, when a family member was assaulted, one of the kindest and most understanding professionals was the gyno. So even though I have a lot of fears around that (how can you not? Religious modesty coupled with fear of assault and fear of sickness), I know I can trust this Dr.
It sounds like you need help with properly verifying information. So what you could do is look it up in a reputable source – if this is a common problem you might even find some sort of scholarly report on it, or perhaps see it in a trustworthy news magazine, sometimes searching within a particular magazine or google scholar yields better results than just googling.
@KL
Thank you so much for your response. I grew up around doctors – both my parents are surgeons – and rather than reassure me about those in the medical profession, this had an adverse effect and I’m very suspicious and untrusting. I’ve gotten a lot better about it, and I’ve only had really good experiences with my gynecologist(s), but any time I see a new one this fear starts rearing its head, and any attempt to assuage it via reading up on the issue results in a lot of websites informing you that said exam ‘for your own good’. Which makes me balk like a panicked mule, for a host of complex reasons.
And in regards to the no specific undesired exam = no BC thing, the problem is I’m having very little luck finding anything that seems reliable or unbiased. There’s a lot of scaremongering out there, that I know, and very little information from doctors countering it.
@Ghostbird I’ve heard about birth control being with held, too, but never experienced it. I even had a gyno tell me I needed to come in every year to get my checkup if I wanted the prescription renewed, but just renewed it for me anyway when I skipped. Then they told me I only needed the pap every 3 years anyway so I was good. I actually had a different doctor at that HMO call me to cancel my checkup because they were busy and when I explained I wanted to talk about getting a prescription for birth control and she just did it over the phone after I described the symptoms I was hoping to get under control with it.
So basically my experience has been pretty positive in regards to not being forced into the exams.
fgas.
Oh dear. Slut shaming for her. Well Done! for him. As for how to deal with it, I’m a bit lost.
Certainly keep on supporting her. But I’m not a bloke, let alone know your particular social group, so I don’t have any reliable suggestion for how to respond to the Well Done! types. You want this to stop, but you also don’t want to make a big deal of it for fear of the whiplash that might affect her, so you’re a bit tongue-tied at the time. (At least, that’s how my mind might work in a similar situation.)
Perhaps one, some, any of the men here might do better than me. Or maybe someone’s had a relevant experience from their social circle that could help a bit.
Regardless, whatever you do has to be with her welfare in mind.
One other avenue for advice might be Captain Awkward. She’s pretty good especially if she can come up with a few of her famous scripts for handling awkward conversations. I don’t recall anything from the archives that would help, though it would be worth your while to search them yourself. http://captainawkward.com/
Welcome Feeling Guilty.
I wish I did have some advice, but unfortunately I don’t know. Because I’ve been on the receiving end of the same kind of thing. About 10 years ago, I was working for a progressive organization. It was one of those incestuous workplaces where there was a lot of hooking up and partying and drinking together because it was a group of hedonistic twenty somethings with a similar world view. So, of course, we were all friends.
Anyway, one drunken St. Patrick’s day, I had sex with a guy who worked for the same org but in a different dept. So I didn’t know him all that well. It turned out, he had a girlfriend. Who worked at the same org in the same dept. as him. She was a nice person too. Also cooler, prettier, and more talented than me. So I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking.
I felt terrible. Even though it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t know. None of our mutual friends thought to try and stop him. Or take me aside and let me know he had a gf. The sex happened at an after bar party at my co-workers apt. in the bathroom. So, also semi-public. Plus he had been pretty openly flirting with me all night.
Yet the gossip was all centered around me. It was assumed that I seduced, or even took advantage of him while he was drunk (never mind that I was just as drunk, if not more so). I actually got slut shaming from feminist women who worked for an abortion rights advocacy group. Ironically, it was my mostly male co-workers in my division, which was an environmental, not a pro-choice org who had my back and made me feel like less of a pariah. Still, for the rest of my time at that org, things were never really the same because of this clusterfuck.
Sorry if that was a teal deer, especially since I had nothing helpful to say, but that post just brought back the memory.
FGAS – you could try talking about the issue with humor.. One of my favorites goes kinda like,. “Why do people act like women should feel bad about having sex? Like, what is so awful about a penis? Why do men hate their own dicks so much?” I think I put it more cleverly before, very tired…. But I’ve found that introducing feminism to my bros through humor goes pretty well usually…. Just point out how ridiculous it is. Honestly, as the man who is getting all the props, you have more power to shut down the shit she is getting. Just tell em, “man, I get all these props but my girl is getting dawged. I don’t get how people expect women to have sex with them when they treat women who enjoy sex like shit”… People already know what happened, you could minimize it maybe but denying it won’t really help, so unless she wants you to deny it, you could be the one to step up for her. & hey, there is a bit of a legit gripe to be had, it can be at least a little awkward/rude/creepy to have someone have sex in front of you when you aren’t expecting it, but idk to me I woulda just laughed it off, sounds like a fun party… But that gripe is equal to both of you, both of you decided to have sex. You could say something like, “I am a grown man and I made a decision just as much as she did, but no one is giving me crap for it, and that’s not really cool. I’m a man, not a Sex Machine, It isn’t a woman’s job to always say no because men just can’t help themselves”…. Not sure how to make that funny or casual…. And you can apologize for making people feel awkward while asking them to stop taking it out on your woman, the ladies might respect you for that one. You probably aren’t gonna stop people from thinking a certain way and gossiping but they might be a little enlightened and more tactful. Idk I could be way wrong I’m not always socially competent but personally I tend to go for just communicating… ?
Once in HS I slut-shamed another girl. She confronted me. I backed off and apologized. So it can change people to look em in the eye and say “not cool”.
Unfortunately KL, The people who are slut-shaming her are unfortunately people who I don’t know but she does. No one in my social circle has been slut-shaming her and have generally been supportive. Unfortunately we all contributed to feeding the rumor mill for the first little while and people who weren’t involved who were more judgmental or had an axe to grind found out. What we’ve decided to do in my social circle is to try and lay low and hope this blows over. Unfortunately I still get people asking me about even just a couple of days ago. I just feel bad especially at the beginning I didn’t realize how the compliments and the gossip would lead to nasty repercussions for her until now. Unfortunately it all seems beyond my control at this point.
I wish I had some advice for you, but I’m stumped honestly. If they are only harassing her when you aren’t around, you can’t deny it, and you can’t avoid those people, all you can do is be supportive, which you are doing already. Beyond getting good advice from someone better equipped, like a therapist, I don’t know what else you can do. I’m pissed off that people treat women that way.
Speaking of slut shaming, I’m sure there aren’t many people here who watch the Bachelorette, but I just wanted to share this from Monday’s Men Tell All episode. It actually gives me hope.
As phony and problematic as the Bachelor/ette franchise is, there was a really strong stance taken against slut shaming, misogyny, and internet bullying. Not in a feminist or social justice space, but on a mainstream, corporate, network TV reality show.
Sometimes it feels like things never get better and there’s still so much misogyny out there, but I don’t think we would have seen this on the part of ABC 5 or 10 years ago. It doesn’t always feel like we’re winning, but I think we are.
https://youtu.be/h8bwye0jupo
It’s been a mixed bag lately.
On the plus side I’ve started my new job and it is *falsetto* a-MAYYY-zing. They know so much and have developed such clever ways of doing things. I’ve learned more in the past few weeks than I think I knew before, and I was considered good at this stuff even before we started.
On the minus side I’ve recently been diagnosed with disordered eating. It was something I sort of knew for ages and just needed to admit to myself: I don’t get around to eating meals, and then sometimes binge on junk food even when I’m full. I’m working through some coping material, but the hardest bit is just having to face up to the fact that I, if left alone, am not okay.
It’s been a mixed bag.
@andiexist: Congrats on seeing a therapist. If you get the right one for you then it can really work out.
@Luxbelitx: It’s about time you admitted that you were one of us. The radio thing sounds amazing – could you tell us more about it, please? (Or have you done that elsewhere and I missed it?)
@smidgette: Welcome! I’m also from a religious background (which may explain my current hardline atheism) so I feel those feels. Sites like this one are an excellent way to re-learn the skewed social mores that we got taught as kids.
@Ghostbird: No advice, sorry, due to being male, but have some hugs instead; unless you don’t like hugs, in which case have some best wishes.
@sanitybroke: I think it’s only natural. When you encounter other human beings you naturally try to empathise with them, which in the case of strongly ideological communities like MRAs can involve distorting your brain to fit their ideology. It can be a fun game to play, and is good practise for being a generally better person to other people. Empathy is like a muscle: the more you practise it the stronger it gets.
FGAS: If your social circle are cool about it and want to be supportive, then you might want to make more room for her to hang out with you lot rather than her own less-supportive circle. This sort of thing is deeply unpleasant but if she comes out of it by finding a group of people to hang with that aren’t as judgemental and nasty, then it might have a silver lining.